‘You can’t have freedom if you are not prepared to be wrong. You can’t always be right and still want to be free. You have to train yourself to be awake when everyone else is sleeping.’

She wakes up late. Very late. She doesn’t sleep in the night. This has been an old habit with a woman who guards her habit and her own space fiercely. When the night clears with the first nuance of down, she stops writing. "I work all night. I’m a nocturnal creature. I’m totally dysfunctional in the day."

Krishna Sobti. Born 1925. Novelist and writer. Author of Zindaginama,

Mitro Marjani, Al Ladki, Dar Se Bichadi and Surjamukhi Andhere Ke among others. By the time this chaotic century finds its fated dead–end, she would have already traveled through 75 years of fragmented time inside the written text of her life, and outside in the undocumented, rough, pulsating noises, memories and smells of the world. And she is still travelling, a compulsive rebel against the human condition, doggedly looking for the meaning of hope in a world suddenly besieged by the shadows of the past.

"They are coming back, the fascists. There is no doubt about their real intentions. They have all the designs of dictatorship," she says, not like a prophecy but with the swift anger of someone who likes to fight back, who hates defeat.

Her eyes are sharp, they too talk like the rapid flow of her early midnight staccato sentences. The lilt in her voice moves with her eyes, like that of a young, breathless girl, chasing one imagination after another, losing track, finding a thread, a tide, a metallic object, falling, faltering, running once again.

She is a long distance runner. No doubt about it. And she is not afraid. Not yet. "It’s the responsibility of every writer in India to stand up and say that this country will not accept any form of dictatorship, or any ideology which controls our mind. We did not accept Emergency. We will not accept the saffronisation of our culture and politics….

"Look at what they are doing and how we are accepting everything. This man, Murli Manohar Joshi, is absolutely illiterate. He doesn’t know what he talks, what he is doing. This is the most dangerous aspect of this new one agenda politics. They are so foolish that sometimes you can’t help but laugh at them." And she laughs, like someone who has seen through the dark absurdity of the game. "This man said somewhere that our science and technology is the greatest in the world. That it’s more than 2,000 years old. Tell me, you can’t help but laugh at their incredible ignorance.

"They are trying to mythologise history, but they are totally illiterate about Indian history and philosophy. They have absolutely no clue about the subconscious history of the complex Indian mind. In the process they are destroying both mythology and history. And every one will become their target, especially women. Because they still uphold the status of a woman as a devi, a sex object, an invisible creature who will labour and produce. They just cannot accept a woman with a strong self-identity, who breaks barriers. In that sense, they will attack all progressive disciplines of gender and culture studies."

She suddenly deviates. She is unstoppable now. She speaks of her experience at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla, where she was invited to work as a creative writer. "I thought fine, it’s a beautiful place, I can work here. But suddenly I had to face this chairman from Allahabad, a Murli Manohar Joshi clone, a man called Pandey, who came and pompously announced that we cannot eat non-vegetarian food in the campus. Fish, chicken, mutton, eggs, they are banned. What kind of people are these, they want everyone to become vegetarians?" And she laughs again. There is complete derision in her laughter.

"They said that writers don’t need to come here. They can sit in a dark kothri (room) and write. I told them I was not dying to come here. I was invited. But if you think writers don’t need a space to work, then I disagree. Why should they work in a dark kothri? This only proves their utter insensitivity and pettiness, their little warped self-glorified minds. They gave me an award. Their government in Delhi. I refused. I don’t want their awards after what they are doing to the country. Imagine raking up the issue of conversions done 400 years ago. What a paglota thing. People convert for self-dignity, not for money."

And what is she writing now? She looks at the Van Gogh reproduction on the wall. Sunflowers. Animated, Sobti replies she is writing about the marginalisation of those who grow old inside and outside the joint family. The book is called Samay Sargam, "samay ke saath raag badal jaata hain, sargam badal jata hain" (The tune and melody changes with time)". "People have suddenly become cold. They only know how to smile in different ways to get things done. If you don’t smile then you are condemned. It was not like this before, if an old man finds a woman companion they can eliminate him. They can eliminate a mother for property, her own sons can do it. But the cruelty is starker in everyday life. Money has become so important. There is no sharing, but buying shares has become more important. Why can’t old people do what they want?’

She feels something "very serious" is happening to our society. "This cruelty and social inequality has to be evened out. You can’t have millions of people outside this affluence, this cyberspace, this global notion of success. For how long can they wait? When will our politicians realise that they are frittering away democracy. Fifty years is a long time and still they are refusing to change. We need to make our people aware and sensitive citizens, not voters. Proud citizens, Indian people are raw and pure, untouched by the cluttered garbage of urbanity. They can’t be turned into eternally passive receptacles of the urban kaleidoscope, which they are supposed to watch and absorb from a distance. They must hit back. You can’t kill Dalits, burn women in funeral pyres, take the roti away from their hands. What incredible suffering. They must hit back. I really feel like hitting back."

As a farewell note. She is still vibrant and the night is passing by. "We need people who can reach out with a different kind of message. Gandhi did not wear saffron, but white. And he did it. And look what they have done to the colour white."